skeptical wrote:


The problem with trying desperately not to allow this struggle to be separated from Yiddishkeit, is simple.

I'm hesitant to write because I feel that this will spiral into pages and pages of debate.

But, here goes anyway.

I was brought up learning that everything we do - eating, sleeping, taking care of our health, etc. - can and should be done in the service of Hashem. The fact that that these are normal human functions that everyone, Jew and non-Jew, does, doesn't matter. When we do these things with the correct intentions - to serve Hashem - we are strengthening our relationship with Him and changing the world in the process.

I don't give a second thought as to what level I'm on. I don't feel the need to be the holiest of holies. I don't feel like a martyr when I do the right thing, and I try to just move on when I don't. I am aware of my shortcomings, I know that I'm not a tzaddik, and I'm fine with that. Though I am aware of the concept of reward and punishment, it's Hashem's business, not mine, so I don't really focus on it.

I just need to do what I need to do, and do them for the right reasons - because that's what Hashem wants of me.

Yiddishkeit is not the problem for the person who does feel like a martyr or does mitzvos in order to be holy and to feel good, it's the ego and self-absorbedness that is the problem. It's like doing things "for your wife" with the sole intention of feeling like a great guy for your thoughtfulness and effort - It's missing the whole point. We do things for our wives, because being in a relationship is about giving.

The "simple struggle" is about Yiddishkeit. If we would recognize how Hashem is the One running the show, we wouldn't be so stressed and frustrated. If we would recognize how much Hashem is giving us every second of every day, we wouldn't feel like martyrs. We feel like martyrs when we feel like we're giving so much, and not getting back enough in return. In reality, it's the total opposite! Hashem is giving us infinitely beyond what we deserve. We should be appreciative, and feel loved.

We just need to "let go and" trust in Him.

You bavorned a lot of things there, but assumed a great deal more. I will not debate, but just share my experience and that of others like me on these truly beautiful ideals you mentioned.




Very nice. I agree 100%. And I agreed 100% for all the years that I was very busy trying not to masturbate my brains out, eventually moving on to sex phone calls, strip clubs, massage parlors, and more. Marriage made me worse, not better - though I felt just as you describe. I even taught what you are writing to new ba'alei teshuvah with all my heart. And I may have looked and felt just like you do right now. But it was clearly not working, and it slowly spiraled from the occasional habit, into the frequent struggle. Years later, in recovery, I saw that I was far more absorbed in lust as the currency for my spiritual value. Even my Teshuvah was distorted. I sincerely saw myself as being locked in a struggle for my very life - for I saw exactly what you describe here...and I never saw that the real problem that was far more serious than all these discussions of kedusha or all-encompassing-yiddishkeit, was that I was living a double life! I was a fake. My own wife did not know the truth about me. She had to be hidden from the most of course! That is a sign of a very sick husband, right there. And certainly I had to maintain my 'goodness' to all around me, right? Sick.

I found a place in Sexaholics Anonymous, where I could stop talking about how yiddishkeit is really everything, or is not really everything, etc...a place where the Emess about Torah is far less important than the truth about my own behavior and desires. That place was the one spot from which i could crawl back onto my feet and begin living without shame. To begin to have a real relationship with Hashem that I could trust myself in, and it of course flowed onto my yiddishkeit, and my yiddishkeit flowed back onto it, as well. Yiddishkeit is no more 'everything' than life itself is 'everything' - and recovery got me alive again. It's Derect Eretz, not Torah that saves addicts. Our problem is not in Torah - or at least cannot be approached that way.

But here we are again, precisely because it seems that you are far more concerned with getting a person's attitude toward Torah set straight, even though you see that is not the cure. Yes, it should be - but should's do not save anybody. For people say the things they want to believe and follow the party line. But I have no interest in debating the principles you are concerned about. I believe that doing so is the bane of most frum Jews who are still busy masturbating themselves to pieces - or fighting masturbation while distracting themselves from real life...both practically the same sickness.

So...




Very nice. But do we? Apparently not very often. Actually very rarely, if ever, does anyone recognize this.




Do many of us really believe that? I do not think so. And in my experience so far, frum guys have typically believed this far less often than non-frum guys I have met with our problems! And I have met hundreds, so far. It seems to me that the fact that the Torah says we should, and that we have always been taught that (as you mention you have), is actually irrelevant to the factual, practical discussion of addiction and recovery that we are trying to have, here.




Yes, but the fact is that most of us who have these problems (and even many of us who do not), do not truly appreciate and do not truly feel loved. Not even close.




We do? OK. Now what?

The Ba'al Shem Tov and other tzaddikim told us that if a person really wants to come to true love of Hashem but is having a hard time of it...he should work on truly loving his fellow Jew. Now, loving the guy sitting next to me in shul better, or my son or daughter better, or my wife better - that sounds to me a very poor substitute for Love of Hashem. Is the Besh"t throwing the doggies a bone? (woof!) No, he is not. He really means it. And it works that way because it takes a lot of humility to recognize and accept that what we really need is far lower on the grandiose totem pole of religious perfection than what we think we need. That is what he is telling us. To me he is saying, "Quit sticking your head in the clouds. Wake up and see things as they actually are - accept it and work with it, not in spite of it." He is telling us that a relationship with G-d is very, very far from us...but can be reached simply through loving His people. And love is action, not a feeling. And If we take real action, then love of Hashem will be given to us as a gift. Veiter humility for us there...for we do not 'get' or 'build' a madreigo, really. They are gifts. Yoga'ati umotzosi.

Nu. To me these are jewels and air itself. And the only way I could get it was and is by sitting in a church basement with shtreimel-jews and goyim alike, and being honest and truthful with them and myself as a man. Derech Eretz kodmah laTorah.




Really? You mean we should do things...etc., because that's what we have been taught.

Again, I agree 100%. No debate on this true ideal. I just do not see how any of these ideals are relevant to the situation we actually find ourselves in.

I insist that the truth about ourselves is far more important than the truth about the Torah. Derech Eretz is first because it is more essential as a building block, and the case of a guy or gal who is doing thngs habitually against their own beliefs and wishes needs to start right there. Insistence on calling it Torah means to me that the person is just unwilling to admit that they have work to do before being able to call it 'Torah' - and they just find that insulting. It's just so much more respectable if the struggle we have can be seen under the rubric of 'avodas Hashem' directly and clearly, as 'Teshuvah', 'struggle against the YH', 'about emunah', etc. That is a subtle point, apparently, for I meet so few who understand it.

Debating about what is the right approach for a Jew to take toward all this recovery work, addiction, etc...(Is it 'outside' avodas Hashem, c"v?; Can anything be?)is just a big, poisonous distraction.

In my considered opinion as a recovering person today.

I do find that when I do mitzvos 'well' and feel very holy that I do feel a sense of entitlement that Hashem will now grant me all my wishes. when it doesn't happen I feel like martyr and feel resentful and I'm more likely to try to take whatever I can for myself as a substitute, in other words I act out.

i' m not saying that that's ok, or even that it's like that everyone, it just happens to be what is true of me as I am today, and I'd like to remain sober today despite my shortcomings.

with the programme, I now spend less of my davening asking and pleading for things I want and more time asking Hashem to help me accept life on His terms. more time, not all the time.

it is something of a pet peeve of mine that comes up in artscroll and hamodia stories all the time. it's the phrase "storm the gates of heaven". uch! it's taking the concept of a poor person meekly knocking on the rich man's door begging for money, and making it seem like the paupers breaking into the rich man's house and steeling his candlesticks. I feel uneasy about the phrase and the hashkofo behind it.

Yes, and to me, it caters to the undercurrent that is unspoken: we need to fight for what G-d may grant us. And who's gates does one 'storm', anyhow? The enemy's, of course.

It implies in a subtle, strange way, that it is essentially us against Him in some way. We 'storm the gates of Heaven' as if we are the army battering against them to get what we want.

That seems ill, to me. Cute, kitsch, and cheerleaderly...but a little bit childish, no?

And there will always be the Cool-Aide guys who are all ready to rationalize that, "No, no. It's just that Hashem wants us to approach it that way as if we are 'fighting' him...so we are really like on His team."

I'm not one for cliches of any sort, but I don't think it's Hashem who is being stormed and we're not taking anything from Him that He doesn't want to give. There is the concept of adversaries above who fight the case against us, and decrees that are a result. When we "storm the gates of heaven," I think it means that we are letting our voices be heard and asking Hashem to consider the zechusim (merits) we or our forefathers may have.

Hashem wants to hear from us, just like parents like hearing from their kids - and unfortunately, sometimes it takes the kids being being broke to remember that their parents exist.

No comment, but I once wrote a long article on the concept of these organizations that daven for you, you can email me for it.

Dov wrote:



Here goes: See Pesachim 119a -
מאי דכתיב למנצח מזמור לדוד זמרו למי שנוצחין אותו ושמח

R' Nachman says that from here we see that we should speak to Hashem with strong convincing tainos - that's what Hashem enjoys. As the gemara relates that when the sages yelled back at Hashem that He had no right to mix in their Talmudic arguments, Hashem chuckled and said, "My children won me over, natzchuni bonai."

Hatzlacha

MT

hhhmmmm... I wonder how many sources we could find that say pretty much the opposite if we all put our heads together. I can think of at least 4 without opening a sefer, and I'm an am ho'oretz.

maybe that's why derech eretz kodmo latorah.

a good sober shabbos to all of you, my good friends.

What are those four?

phew, I survived shabbos in one piece. B"H. there were so many pretty young girls around that by the afternoon I felt that if I saw one more I would not have enough control over myself to not literally grab her. it's a scary thought.

I had a couple of revelations this week. I went to work without lunch and had to buy. there were regular sandwiches and bagels in the bakery, both the same price so I thought, you know I really like bagels, why not buy that? then it occurred to me that if I like bagels so much, why do I always find myself coming out of the bakery with regular sliced bread? if I like bagels why don't I ever buy myself bagels?! weird! so that's what I did.

in a similar way I realised last shabbos that I don't like whiskey. I used to like it but for about a year now I find that it just burns my throat and chest and makes me more likely to get a tension headache. so why in the world do I drink with it?! I think it's partly social pressure where I live. so I went out for Friday night meal and my host (who's very into whiskey) wanted me to try his latest purchase. it actually took some courage to refuse it but I did and felt much better later.

I wonder if it's something about being an addict that makes me not treat myself nicely.

one more thing. I came home Friday afternoon to find my house a mess, my wife emotional, washing still wet and ironing nt done. at first I was annoyed, how can we have a shabbos in this mess?! then it struck me, I had to make a choice, I can either have a clean house (by shouting at my wife and running around like a crazy person cleaning up), or I can keep my sobriety. which do I choose? so I accepted the house as it was, did a few things calmly and went to shul on time. I felt very serene. and then the weird thing happened. when I went back home after shul, the house didn't seem messy at all!

Machshovo Tova wrote:

that is for one who is bemadreigas ben, but legabay an eved the gemara sanhedrin (107a) says Dovid HaMelech said it is not proper to be menatzeyach the adon (see iyun yakov in pesochim and sanhedrin)

maybe the dr means in berachos and sukka and megila and taanis about never being matiach devorim klapay maala (the gemara says Moshe and Eliyahu and Chana and Levi did)

Dr.Watson wrote:

Duvid Chaim gives hoework assignments every day to the participants of his call. One of them was "Treat Yourself". In the next 24 Hours, be nice to yourself just once. Don't "Indulge", be nice to yourself, treat yourself as if you were a deserving person.


We don't do that often, and then we end up treating others like dirt too, l'reacha kamocha, you know.

kilochalu wrote:


The Rashb"a paskens (vol.1 ch.194 & 242) like R' meir that we are always bemadreigas ben, even when we misbehave.

MT